Rating: 9 out of 10

Construction Kits are the way forward for sample CDs it would seem, and just to prove the point look no further than Nu House, an absolutely mental collection of all the sounds you'll ever need for putting together your own
hard house and nu-NRG tracks.

Each construction kit has a short demo track preceding it, which outlines what can be done, and just checking these out reveals a collection of short tunes, most of which you could imagine hearing in some dingy little basement club where white gloves and glo-sticks are the order of the day. Following each demo are the constituent parts, amounting to a goldmine of usable samples, from power kicks, tough percussion loops, throbbing basslines and in-yer-face lead lines to indispensable filter sweeps and effects.

The first CD is made up entirely of construction kits. There are 12 hard kits that'll have the old-skoolers laughing at the Hoover-esque cheese, before eight clubby kits that are a little more reserved...only fractionally though! And finishing up CD1 are ten darker techie kits. CD2 features a bunch of ACID-ready WAV files and hundreds of one-hit samples, from percussion through to basses and sweeps. If you like it hard, fast and powerful, this is not to be missed!